Media Literacy

In Rick Beach's class last semester, we immersed ourselves in the topic of media literacy. To read his manifesto this week was a nice reminder of what we worked towards in that class. I love the idea of using blogs for students writing in my classroom, but I doubt that it will be well received by the school. We will see, I think I may try to do it. In the whitepaper article, the topic of transparency struck at chord. I think it is reasonable to expect that students will find their way through the modern media landscape without harm. But nevertheless it still is necessary to teach the critical skills or at least develop existing critical capabilities. One thing I think that is necessary is moving towards the higher-level thinking skills with the media students will have already interacted with. They may be able to navigate the complexities of a video game but can they synthesize disparate materials and develop their own analysis? This is the value of teaching media literacy.

My link this week is the Internet Archive. It has a wide range of materials, all potentially to be used in the Media Studies classroom.